


Chroma

by kangamangus (orphan_account)



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Domestic Fluff, Episode: s03e05 A Life in the Day, Fillory (The Magicians), Grief/Mourning, Love, M/M, Mosaic, Multi, Sickfic, Slice of Life, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 15:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17625158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/kangamangus
Summary: Set during A Life in the Day, Eliot gets sick and Quentin frets.





	Chroma

After a while, Quentin begins thinking in color. 

It feels like a forced synesthesia, an uncomfortable game of association that his brain begins without his consent, and never stops. He sees color in everything — in the huff of annoyance that Eliot gives him when he awakens to find that Quentin did not shut the window last night, rainwater soaking through his side of the bed; in the laughter he hears as Eliot tickles Teddy awake; in the way the damp air tastes when he walks outside to kneel before the mosaic as he does every morning. 

He sees patterns when he closes his eyes at night, and recreates them in the mosaic the next morning. He assigns colors to the friends he now only thinks upon occasionally — to Alice and her struggles, to Julia and her growing strength. Everything is shaded in hues that shift, morph, and then expand, and before long, Quentin cannot remember what it is like to think without color. 

When Eliot joins him at the mosaic after cleaning up breakfast, Quentin realizes that something is wrong. His colors, usually bright, though calmer now than they ever were back in their old lives, seem muted and dulled. He looks tired, a translucent but cloudy gray settling over his other hues as he reaches to lift a tile, thinks better of it, then pulls back his hand to rub his temple. 

“I’m tired today,” he admits, voice low. It’s a phrase that Quentin himself has uttered many times since Arielle died, the weight of grief bearing down on him and forcing him to see only darkness. Those days have become less frequent, and he has learned to see color again, but looking at Eliot now, he wonders if he too needs space to grieve. Eliot had been his strength when he had none of his own — and maybe, Quentin thinks, his darkness overshadowed Eliot’s grief and kept him from mourning the loss of the woman they had both loved. 

Quentin sets down the tile he is holding to go to Eliot and place a hand on his cheek. His skin is warm, alive, and it steadies Quentin. “Take a nap,” he tells Eliot, who places his hand over Quentin’s, and smiles that calm, steady smile — free of the burden of their old lives. 

“Maybe a short one,” Eliot agrees. 

He leaves, and Quentin creates patterns, then reads a book with Teddy. Eventually, he makes lunch. Eliot does not rouse, so Quentin leaves Teddy to eat while he checks on him. 

Eliot is curled in on himself, twisted within the blankets, sleeping hard but seemingly fitfully. His hair is damp with sweat, clinging to his face, which is creased with stress lines. The cloud of gray is darker now, and Quentin’s heart beats a little faster, stirs with anxiety as he realizes that this is more than grief. 

"El,” he murmurs, sitting beside him, running his fingers through Eliot’s damp hair. “Time to wake up.” 

Eliot stirs, then blinks his eyes open with a wince. “I had a strange dream,” he confesses, the words dry and grating. 

“Teddy!” Quentin calls. “Can you bring us some water?” 

“Sure!” his son calls back. 

“You’re sick,” Quentin tells Eliot, brushing his cheek with the back of his hand. “I can feel your fever.” He pauses his hand, rests it for a moment, and tries not to think about how he did the same for Arielle once, shortly before she died. 

“I’m okay,” Eliot says as he pushes himself up into a sitting position. Quentin pulls his hand back. 

Teddy brings the glass of water and holds it out to Eliot, who smiles and thanks him. Teddy runs back to his lunch while Eliot downs the water. 

“That’s better,” he assures Quentin, but his voice doesn’t sound any less jarring. He sniffs, the sound of congestion even more foreboding than the hoarse quality of his voice. “Don’t look at me like that.” 

“Like what?” Quentin asks 

“Like I’m going to fall into pieces.” 

Quentin doesn’t stop looking at him, and he doesn’t stop thinking about that, either: Eliot’s colors breaking up and scattering, becoming yet another mosaic that he can’t put together; or worse, the cloud of gray darkening until he can’t see Eliot’s colors at all anymore. 

Eliot touches his face now, gently, a light thumb across his cheek. 

“I’m okay,” he promises. “Go back to work. I’ll clean up lunch.” 

He doesn’t want to go back to work on the mosaic. He wants to curl up around Eliot protectively, to guide him through whatever new storm they are about to weather. But Eliot smiles at him reassuringly, and Quentin goes back to his puzzle and creates more patterns out of tiles. 

A couple of hours into work, Teddy runs outside with a pout on his face, looking on the verge of tears, but holding them back. “Papa won’t play with me,” he whines. 

"Papa’s a little sick,” he tells Teddy, pulling him into his lap. “How about you help me with this?” 

They work together on the mosaic for a while, until Teddy gets bored and runs off to play. As it begins to grow dark, Quentin decides to check on Eliot. 

He finds him in bed again, though awake, a pile of mosaic patterns in one hand, and a scrap of fabric tucked in the other. He doesn’t notice Quentin at first, and his lack of awareness gives Quentin a moment to truly take in just how awful Eliot feels — the way he breathes through his mouth, his unsteady hand trying to flip one of the pages; the way he pauses in mid-turn to cough into the fabric. 

“El,” Quentin breathes, going to him, wrapping his arms around him, feeling the heat of his fever, the rise and fall of his chest, labored and tired. He closes his eyes for a moment, holding Eliot, and thinking about his colors. Reds and yellows and oranges, like a sunrise — he tries to will the grays away. “You’re so sick.” 

Eliot hugs Quentin back, and though his arms lack strength, they stabilize him. “I’m okay,” Eliot whispers. “It’s okay.” 

“It’s not okay,” Quentin replies, pulling back to look at Eliot, to see how his eyes are watery and red-rimmed, the way his nose has pinkened against his pale face, the dark hues of exhaustion clouding his expression. He puts his hand on Eliot's chest and can feel a slight wheeze as it swells, then catches, and Eliot pulls back to sneeze, shielding his face with his arm. 

After, Eliot leans forward and rests his head against Quentin’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t be so close. You can’t get sick.” A pause, then: “Teddy can’t get sick.” 

He’s right; the thought of Teddy getting sick causes a sickening new wave of panic to wash over him. Quentin ties to ignore it. He will have Teddy keep his distance, but he can’t do the same. He can’t allow Eliot to suffer through his alone. 

He can’t lose Eliot. 

"I’ll be alright,” Eliot tells him, as though he can read his mind. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

But then he coughs, the sound rattling and dangerous, and Quentin holds him through each body-wracking fit, refusing to let him go. 

At night, Teddy asleep in a little blanket fort that Quentin made for him in an attempt to make the quarantine less obvious, Quentin waits until Eliot falls into a feverish, unsettled sleep. Then he moves his hands and murmurs words and tries to use magic to make the illness to away, to quiet the wheeze, to drain the congestion — to fix this. 

But if there’s one thing that Quentin has learned, it’s that magic doesn’t fix everything. Magic can’t solve the mosaic. Magic couldn’t save Arielle. And magic cannot pull this illness away from Eliot. 

When he finally gives up, the early morning hours giving way to light, he holds Eliot, and feels each unsteady breath until he finally sleeps. 

He is woken by a sudden jerk of Eliot’s body, a rough bout of coughing that takes a long moment to subside. 

“El?” Quentin mumbles, rubbing his back. 

“I’m okay,” Eliot chokes out as he finally gets his lungs back in control. 

Quentin’s anxiety flares again, fueled by lack of sleep and the blurry memory of a dream about Arielle. “How’s your fever? You still seem gray.” 

“Gray?” Eliot asks, tilting his head at Quentin. 

Quentin reaches forward and places his palm on Eliot’s forehead. Eliot leans into it, closing his eyes. 

“Still warm,” Quentin tells him. _But still alive_. 

“I remember last night,” Eliot tells him, and there’s a chide in his voice. “You tried to magic it away, didn’t you?” 

Quentin pulls his hand back looks away, toward Teddy’s blanket fort, where Teddy is still sleeping. “I can’t lose you, El.” 

Eliot cups his chin and guides Quentin’s attention back to him. “You’re stuck with me, Q,” he says, eyes somehow so serious despite being so watery and tired. “We’re going to raise Teddy and solve the mosaic and grow old. Together.” He takes Quentin’s hand, intertwining their fingers. “I’m not leaving you." 

As he speaks, Quentin staring into his serious expression, the assurances settling into his mind, Quentin can see some of the gray begin to fade. He can see Eliot’s colors breaking free, promising yet another day in this life that they share together. He leans into those colors, his forehead against Eliot’s, and he stays that way for a long while, while Eliot murmurs to him and continues to push the gray away. 

“I’m hungry,” Teddy suddenly calls sleepily from his fort. 

Eliot laughs. Quentin smiles. The sun rises yet again.


End file.
